Orioles select SS Richie Martin with 1st pick of Rule 5 Draft

[Yachtsman]

Big hit. Nice to see. This is a good game.

[Frobby]

That was about the most unlikely game tying homer I ever saw.   

[interloper]

How we feeling about Richie? Seems like he doesn't have much shot of being a true MLer in the future, at least at this point, but I'll still be intrigued to see what he can do at AAA next year. Assuming he makes it through this year. 

It seems like maayyyyybbeee he's starting to have some better ABs and hang in there a little more? Tough to say. His battling line is.... real bad. But if he could get into the .200 zone and take a few more walks, suddenly that looks a lot better. 

[ShaneDawg85]

Even the pitcher couldn't believe he gave up a home run to Richie Martin based on his reaction.  Not to take anything away from him because he's the last person I'd have expected to have tied it up, even having watched it happen live.

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, interloper said:

How we feeling about Richie? Seems like he doesn't have much shot of being a true MLer in the future, at least at this point, but I'll still be intrigued to see what he can do at AAA next year. Assuming he makes it through this year. 

It seems like maayyyyybbeee he's starting to have some better ABs and hang in there a little more? Tough to say. His battling line is.... real bad. But if he could get into the .200 zone and take a few more walks, suddenly that looks a lot better. 

I’m completely uninspired.   His defense is steady, but not great.   It’s not like he’s Cesar Izturis out there with the glove, and Izturis is probably his upside with the bat.   I’m fine riding with him the rest of the year, but we need a better option going forward.

 

[makoman]

He's realllly close to passing Davis at least.

162/245/301/546

176/243/296/539

From the offseason scouting reports I was hoping his D would be better. If he can grow into a 650 OPS that might be adequate with plus D...with average or worse D it's just not going to work out.

[canonfaz]

No issue keeping him on the team this year, he's a cheap SS and you gotta put someone there, but it wouldn't surprise me if we don't keep him on the 40 man during the offseason so we can protect some possible rule5 guys. 

[jabba72]

I think it would be silly to give up on him now, When does his rule 5 status expire this year? July or later? He has at least until then but I dont know who else can play SS besides Villar or Alberto. Both Martins HR's have come in the last 10 games, so I think he is turning a corner right now. 

[DrungoHazewood]

2 minutes ago, makoman said:

He's realllly close to passing Davis at least.

162/245/301/546

176/243/296/539

From the offseason scouting reports I was hoping his D would be better. If he can grow into a 650 OPS that might be adequate with plus D...with average or worse D it's just not going to work out.

I guess we shouldn't be making definitive conclusions based on a Rule 5 pick's first 350 MLB innings.  But so far he's in no way a major league player, looks a lot more like the guy who hit in the .230s his first three years as a pro.

(Oh, and did anyone else notice bb-ref now includes college stats on the minor league pages?  That's messing me up - at first glance I thought Martin had an .829 in the low minors four years ago, but no... that was at University of Florida.)

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

I think it would be silly to give up on him now, When does his rule 5 status expire this year? July or later? He has at least until then but I dont know who else can play SS besides Villar or Alberto. Both Martins HR's have come in the last 10 games, so I think he is turning a corner right now. 

His Rule 5 status doesn’t expire until a full season of big league service has gone by.   However, if you can find a good excuse to put him on the IL, he only needs to be on the active roster for 90 days.    We had a respectable excuse with Santander, but it might be hard to pull off with Martin.   

[glenn__davis]

I see no reason to keep him and no real reason to get rid of him, lol.  He's just a guy who's there to play SS during a lost year.  I don't see any evidence that he's any sort of future piece, and I agree that with the talent we need to add to the 40-man this offseason he may be a casualty.

[HowAboutThat]

38 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m completely uninspired.   His defense is steady, but not great.   It’s not like he’s Cesar Izturis out there with the glove, and Izturis is probably his upside with the bat.   I’m fine riding with him the rest of the year, but we need a better option going forward.

 

Exactly. He’s a placeholder. He’s getting his pension and his healthcare and league minimum for this year( which is 500k and that’s not bad) so he’ll be ok.

[spiritof66]

Martin's defense has been a lot worse than I had expected, in both the rarity of outstanding plays and the lack of reliability on more routine throws, and seems to be deteriorating rather than improving.

In addition to the HR last night, he's had some good ABs recently, but few of them have produced hits or hard hit balls.

He sure is fast, but that has produced a mixed bag of results so far.

There's no reason not to give Martin most of the SS time for the rest of the season before deciding whether he looks like he has the potential to be part of an improving team in 2020 and beyond, possibly after some time at AAA, but it sure doesn't look like it right now.

Having the one-two punch of Martin and Crush in the lineup is really debilitating to the offense, and I could well be dispiriting to the Orioles' starting pitchers if they allow themselves to think about it after they give up some runs in the early innings. And I can imagine that the  guys who bat right before them figure they have to do more than just get on base in order to have a decent chance of scoring.

.

[interloper]

41 minutes ago, Cy Bundy said:

He’s absolutely useless. 

I dunno about all that. But I do wonder if a roster crunch eventually sees him returned to the A's with Villar playing SS full-time and Hanser playing a lot of 2B/backing up SS. 

[Natty]

Plus...He is a very fast baserunner. 

Minus...He cant even hit ,200, and is only an average fielder despite all the hoopla about him being very good with a glove at SS.